A Neurotic Mutt's Boogeyman... Who would've thought of it?

Almost everyone I get acquainted with learns one thing very rapidly about me. I am the resigned owner of a furry banshee, who detests the entire human race, barring a few exceptions.

Her name is Nemo, she’s a 10 year old Spitz and she’s the epitome of the saying “Appearances are deceptive”. To look at, she’s nothing more than your average cute-n-cuddly toy dog but once you get within hearing range, your opinion changes quickly.

Nemo is one of those ‘one-man’ dogs. My father is her ‘only one’, her “person”. The hierarchy crumbles pretty quickly post that. She barely tolerates other family members, and hates all other humans.

Her first instinct on seeing a new face is to charge at full speed and then rear up on her hind legs against the new person. Not especially intimidating, since she only reaches your knee even at her full, vertical height, but there are those cyanophobes who freeze or panic when they see just about any kind of dog coming at them.

Another possible reaction of hers is to sniff a person’s feet vigorously and then bark the place down. As you can tell, house guests aren’t entirely too happy with her and she’s always confined to my parents’ bedroom whenever people come over. But she’s not happy with that arrangement either. She claws at the bedroom door making a din equivalent to rebels with a battering ram, tearing down a castle’s ramifications. It’s not easy owning an anti social mutt; let me tell you that now.

Other people such as the driver, maid servant, milk man, newspaper delivery boy are met with furious volleys of barks loud enough to resurrect the dead. It’s a shame is what it is, because she could have been an extremely popular dog with people because of her looks. She just chooses to throw it all away with her defiant attitude.

Communication with other members of the canine species has been extremely limited for madam. She doesn’t know what to make of other dogs.

But, at the heart of it all, Nemo is just a coward and a bully. That’s why she appears extra aggressive and ferocious. It is to hide her own insecurities. It actually doesn’t take much to frighten her. A bucket falling over. The clatter of steel utensils in the kitchen. Slight shifting of a dustbin. Fireworks. Brass bands.

Well, many people own pets that scare easily. But yesterday, I came up with a hypothesis that summarized Nemo’s biggest fear, and then it just made me ROFL.

See… Nemo was once bitten by another dog when she was a puppy. Since then, she actively avoids others of her own species and we ourselves don’t let her get too close to any other dogs. Being the neurotic specimen that she is, who knows what she’d do? She’s utterly unpredictable.

Her only connection to all other animals are the scents that my family and I carry on our clothes or hands after we meet another dog. Whenever we get back home in the evening, she sniffs us from top to bottom and we oblige her by telling the name of the dog.

Now I know that dogs have pretty short term memory, but then I like to think that Nemo associates each dog with their own scent and forms a picture of them in her little doggie brain. She may not have seen my other canine friends first hand but maybe she knows who I’m talking about when she sniffs me and I say “Guess what Nemo? I saw Crusty again today!” or “Ooh Nemo! Mishka smell!” or “Patches smell”. Yup, that’s the cue word that my mom and I use. “Smell”.

Now, the problem arises with puppies. Not all puppies have names. Especially if they are road side mongrels. I don’t always stop to pet every dog I see, but I sure as hell stop to pet every damn puppy. Who can ignore a litter of chubby, fluffy puppies? Anyway, whenever I get home and Nemo does her customary ‘sniff-over’ I say, “Look Nemo! Puppy smell!”

Poor Nemo must be thinking that ‘Puppy’ is the name of yet another dog. And in her head she must be thinking What strange creature is this? Smells like four to five of my kind at once! And every time this one comes home the smell changes! How can the smell of the same animal change?

She visibly feels afraid if you say “puppy”. In her skewed mind’s eye, maybe ‘puppy’ is a huge fire breathing demon with contradictory smells of a thousand different dogs which is out for her blood.

That explains yesterday. My mom had taken her out for her customary post lunch poo-n-pee and spied a litter of puppies in the storm drain. She said, “Look Nemo! Puppy!” and this dog’s first reaction was to tuck her tail between her legs and dart away from the place as if my mother had proclaimed “Look Nemo! A mad axe murderer!”

Nemo is a sociopath. Indisputably. But the funniest and most endearing thing is to think that this terror fears chubby fur balls. Now that, is irony.

-  ~ Inquisitive I